the holy land

Jenn and I made it to Jerusalem yesterday. As our plane taxied down the runway in Jordan we went by what looked like an airplane graveyard, and there were close to a dozen old green and white Iraqi Airlines sitting there rusting. I suppose they were the planes that were out of the country when the U.S. invaded in 1991 and instituted the no-fly zone and could never go back. Maybe that would make them exiles of some sort. They looked sad.

Our flight from Amman was only twenty minutes long. Our time in security was about an hour and half. Pretty much the same routine: Everyone with U.S. passports goes right on through until they get to me. This time though the questions and assumptions were a little more "profiling" and insulting. Oh well... I'm here now. I've always wanted to visit Iraq, Egypt and Israel. This makes two out of three.

Jenn and are staying in a hotel that used to be a seminary, and apparently is very pro-Palestinian (the poster to the left is from 1936 and hangs in the lobby right next to a framed poster condemning the wall Israel is building around Palestine).

The school where we are studying is near the Zion gate, and is one of the earliest buildings to be build outside the old city walls. It was originally a British run school for Arab boys. Guess who's back...

The campus is beautiful, but sitting on a hill means everything is very close together with lots and lots and lots of stairs. It is built up against the city wall, with parts of it built on the bedrock that the walls from Jesus' day were built on. You can see the parts that are from the 1st century that have been incorporated into the building, including one bedroom which was a 1st century tomb.

We're pretty exhausted from our first day, so we'll have more later. Until then, Salaam... Shalom... Peace

Jenn and I in the center of campus.